State shuts down twin charter schools on Near East Side

In a rare move, the state school superintendent has ordered the immediate shutdown of two brand-new Columbus charter schools, saying conditions are deplorable.

Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch

In a rare move, the state school superintendent has ordered the immediate shutdown of two brand-new Columbus charter schools, saying conditions are deplorable.

The schools had been open only a few weeks, but several visits from the Ohio Department of Education found that the middle-school students at the Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Boys and Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Girls, which were in different buildings on the Near East Side, weren’t properly supervised.

There were serious fights. There weren’t enough staff members. Lunch wasn’t served on a set schedule, and often it was simply fast food that someone had picked up.

Lax oversight by the sponsor is to blame, said Richard A. Ross, Ohio’s superintendent of public instruction. The North Central Ohio Educational Services Center in Marion sponsors 21 other charter schools in the state, many in central Ohio.

“They did not ensure the safety of the students, they did not adequately feed the students, they did not accurately track the students, and they were not educating the students well. It is unacceptable and intolerable that a sponsor and school would do such a poor job. It is an educational travesty,” Ross said in a news release.

The sponsor said it was overseeing the schools, had grave concerns and already was taking action at the schools before the state stepped in.

The school for boys was in the King Arts Complex on Mount Vernon Avenue. The girls school was a few streets away at Trinity Baptist Church on St. Clair Avenue, state records say. It appears that fewer than 40 kids went to each school, though the state hasn’t determined an accurate headcount and the schools had not reported their enrollment.

The North Central Ohio Educational Services Center has grown rapidly as a charter-school sponsor. Sixteen of the 21 schools it now oversees were given the go-ahead to open this school year. Of those 16 new schools, the state says, six either didn’t open or were closed within a few weeks of opening, four had been ordered closed earlier by other sponsors, and four already are struggling with finances.

Ross also has ordered Jim Lahoski, superintendent of the center, to come to his office to explain what Ross called “poor approval and oversight practices.”

Lahoski said yesterday that his center had voluntarily suspended the schools’ operations and notified parents before the state ordered the shutdown.

“I’m really disappointed because we did have high hopes for that school. It looked to me like things were falling in place pretty well,” Lahoski said.

“We have been down to that school, I can’t tell you how many times,” he continued. “So we’ve been monitoring it. We’ve expressed concerns all along to our legal counsel that we need to keep our eye on it. We want to be a good sponsor; in doing so, we’re going to do what’s right.”

Both of the Talented Tenth schools aimed to serve at-risk middle-school students. In addition to the health and safety issues, department employees also say kids weren’t being properly educated.

The school’s founder, Andre Tucker, had opened a charter school in Columbus before, in the 2011-12 school year. It, too, had a goal of serving at-risk middle-school students and closed during its first year. It was called the Leadership Academy of Mathematics and Science and operated between fall of 2011 and April 2012.

Sources said Tucker has a criminal background. An Andre Tucker with the same birth date as the one who works in Ohio schools was convicted of felony theft in Florida in 2010 and sentenced to probation.

The Talented Tenth schools account for the second and third charter-school closings in Columbus so far this school year.

BAJIM Village Academy, had financial trouble and had begun the school year with only three students. It was closed by its sponsor this month.

@jsmithrichards

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